


Damned the Both Of Us

by vials



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: M/M, could be a missing scene, it's also really angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: When Bill shows up at Jim's caravan in the middle of the night, dramatic as always, there's no end to the questions they want to ask one another. It's a shame that there are no answers they can give.





	

Jim had been trying to ignore the knocking on the door, but it was difficult considering the caravan wasn’t exactly the roomiest of places and whoever was knocking was doing so hard enough to shake the entire damn thing. It was for that reason more than anything else that Jim decided to answer the door; he was worried that if he didn’t, the caravan would be pushed right off its brick foundations. 

It was raining heavily outside, the thudding on the caravan’s roof adding to the noise. Jim could hear it trickling into puddles underneath the caravan as he moved to the door, glancing out of the window as he did so. It was no good; there was no light out there, and even if there had been, the rain was throwing itself so hard against the window that he wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway.

He wrenched the door open, fully intending to tell the person there to fuck off, but the words died in his throat the second he saw Bill Haydon standing two feet away from him, his hair plastered to his head with rain. He gave a small smile, shifting slightly where he stood, and Jim heard his shoes squelch unpleasantly. 

“I do hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Bill said, and for a moment Jim forgot every word in every language he knew.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he eventually said. His voice sounded too quiet.

“Of course I shouldn’t be here,” Bill said, giving a small shrug. “But I am here. Are you going to let me in? I can feel rainwater running down my back.”

Jim paused, briefly toying with the idea of slamming the door closed. This was a phenomenally bad idea and he knew it; nothing good would come of breaking the rules like this, not for either of them. He found himself frustrated with Bill, hating him for breaking the rules _again_ , just like he always did – but of course the consequences never fell on Bill’s shoulders. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, but there was no conviction to his words and he knew that Bill could hear it.

“Jim. Please,” he said, quietly, barely audible over the rain. Hating himself, Jim sighed and stepped back.

“Make it quick, whatever it is.”

The caravan was even smaller with the two of them inside, and Jim didn’t think that was for the expected reasons. For as long as he had known Bill, a room had always seemed smaller once he was in it; for such a delicately built man, he commanded more space than anyone Jim had ever known. He almost wanted to sit down, to huddle himself out of Bill’s way, but he forced himself to stay where he was, watching as Bill shrugged off his soaking raincoat and put it carefully on one of the makeshift pegs next to the door.

“I won’t keep you long,” he said as he did so. “It’s just this bloody thing weights so much when it’s wet, I can’t stand it. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Why are you here?” Jim asked. He could hardly believe it even with Bill standing in the light of indoors; the water was still dripping from his hair and his cheeks were flushed from the cold, but the coat had protected his clothing well and he looked exactly how Jim remembered him, dressed like he had walked right out of the Circus and simply ended up at Jim’s door on his walk home. Jim almost hated him for it – how did he have the nerve to look so normal when everything else was so wrong?

“I had to see you,” Bill said simply, as though that one want or desire of his was justification enough to flaunt what was perhaps the biggest rule of Jim’s return home. “I don’t think you can begrudge me that.”

“I’m under strict orders to have no more contact with the Circus,” Jim said, the bitterness easily finding its way into his voice. “I got a car, and I got a thousand pounds, and I got told to fuck off. I’m an undesirable, Bill. I talked. I was involved in a rogue mission that got botched and I was thrown out for it.”

“I know what happened,” Bill said, his voice infuriatingly calm. “But I don’t see what that has to do with this. This isn’t a professional visit.”

“Sure Alleline will have something to say,” Jim said stiffly. “Or anyone, for that matter.”

“I thought you were dead,” Bill said, and finally Jim heard a hitch of something in his voice. “And then they tell me that actually, you’re alive, and not only that but you’re back in the country. I had to see for myself. I had to know they weren’t lying to me, or I think I would have never truly believed it.”

“Well,” Jim said, spreading his arms out slightly. “Here I am.”

“I know,” Bill said, a tinge of sadness to his smile now. “I must admit, if I’m to be truly honest with myself, that I hoped you would at least be a little bit happy to see me.”

Jim didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t even know where to begin. He knew that Bill wasn’t an idiot; he knew that he understood what Jim had meant when he had spoken to him beforehand, before everything had gone so wrong. Quite suddenly, it hit him just who he was in the room with, and it took all his strength to not do something he would regret – even if he only regretted it for the inconvenience.

“Jim,” Bill said, quietly, and Jim shook himself out of his thoughts, looking at him. Bill looked almost pathetic in that moment, his face tired, his eyes not quite damp but not quite dry either. He looked desperate for something, and Jim didn’t have a clue what.

“What do you want me to say, Bill? You came here to see if it was all true; it is. I’m here, you’ve seen me – what else do you want? Some kind of absolution?” 

“Absolution for _what_?” Bill asked, a little too quickly.

“I don’t know,” Jim replied, avoiding the bait. “Whatever might be going through your mind. You’re acting like a sinner at confession.”

Bill gave a short laugh, but it rang hollow. It left a heavy silence behind it, broken only when Bill cleared his throat.

“I’ll leave,” he said, his voice strangely dull. “I shouldn’t have intruded. I wish you all the best, Jim.”

Jim nearly let him go. He should have let him go; he was silent for the time it took Bill to turn and put his coat back on, water dripping onto the linoleum as he pulled his arms through the sleeves with a wince. He would have perhaps stayed silent if it hadn’t been for the final look that Bill gave him, sadness tinged with guilt tinged with something like disappointment, reminding Jim that even after everything Bill Haydon still expected more from him. It was enough for Jim to break the silence in the room, to break the sudden stillness, too, with a surge of anger he didn’t think himself capable of feeling towards Bill.

“So that’s it?” he asked, his voice trembling. “You wanted to come all the way out here, just so _you_ could make sure I was actually here, without a word for how I’m doing? For _your_ peace of mind? And now you’ve seen that, it’s off home for you, is it? Back to the Circus; back to normality?”

He saw Bill’s shoulders tense; the bump in his throat as he swallowed.

“I can see how you’re doing,” he eventually said. “But something tells me you don’t think I would make the best confidant.”

“You think I have anything more to say to this?” Jim snapped.

“No,” Bill replied, his voice back to that infuriating calm. “That’s why I’m leaving.”

“You’re not leaving,” Jim said, laughing, and within a moment he had cleared the space between them and grabbed Bill by a fistful of his raincoat. He saw a flash of surprise cross Bill’s face, followed quickly by uncertainty, before Bill finally closed his face off and stared at Jim with an air of casual curiosity. 

“You’re not leaving,” Jim said again, giving Bill a slight shake, and Bill was like a ragdoll in his grip. “What do you think you’re playing at, Bill? Coming up here and demanding answers from me –” Jim shook him again. “—and not thinking for a moment that I might want some from you?”

“What answers do you want from me?” Bill asked, but he wasn’t looking at Jim, instead allowing his gaze to linger on a spot just past and slightly above Jim’s shoulder. 

“That whole mission was a pile of shit,” Jim practically spat. He could feel himself shaking, and his shoulder ached from the force he was pinning Bill against the wall with. “Every single part of it, it was all bollocks. Now I come back and everyone just wants it hushed up – they want everyone who had anything to do with it as far away as possible. Things have gone wrong before, Bill. Things have gone catastrophically wrong before. Why kick Control out like that? It’s not the first cock-up that’s happened. Why hush it all up? Why any of this?”

“Control was on his way out anyway,” Bill said, shifting slightly and giving up when he realised Jim’s grip held firm. “He was old, Jim. He wasn’t pushed out. He decided to resign; guess he decided this was all too much for him. And he was losing his marbles a bit, you have to admit that.”

“I don’t think he was losing his marbles,” Jim said pointedly. “All this reeks of a cover-up, don’t you think?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” Bill said. “It was all strictly need to know, and I’m afraid the specifics died with Control. Unless, of course, you have anything to add.”

“You know what this was about. You’re a top dog, aren’t you?”

“I know with hindsight,” Bill said simply. “That isn’t to say I know the whole story. I don’t know what lead to this, Jim. I agree it was a bloody mess, but it’s not as though I personally knew you were going to get shot. It wasn’t as though I knew it would go so wrong.”

It was a lie, and they both knew the other was aware of it. Bill didn’t even try to hide the knowledge from his face; his dark eyes stared at Jim now, as though daring him to follow up on it. Jim found himself wanting to, briefly, before exhaustion took over again and he let Bill go, noting how the man slid a couple of inches to the floor. There was a pause, and then Bill hesitantly reached up and tugged at his coat, rubbing his neck.

“Would you have stopped me if you did know?” Jim eventually asked.

“You know how this work is,” Bill replied. “You would have gone anyway, even if you knew it was practically suicide.”

Jim gave a tight smile. “I probably would.”

“Why did you go?” Bill asked, suddenly, the question taking Jim by surprise; he had fully expected the conversation to die. “If you knew that it was all a load of tripe, why did you go?”

“I wanted to be proven wrong,” Jim said, simply, and he didn’t care what Bill made of that. “I had ideas in my head, and I wanted to prove them wrong.”

“And did you?” Bill asked. His voice cracked slightly; Jim could tell from the way he was talking that his throat had gone dry.

“No,” Jim said. “In fact, I think I was proven right.”

Bill nodded, a little too frantically. He looked as though he might be on the verge of tears. He dropped his head, and when he raised an arm, Jim noticed it was trembling. Bill clumsily pulled his sleeve over his palm, curling his fingers around it to keep it in place. Jim watched as he raised it to his face, pressing the back of his hand to his nose. When he moved it away slightly, Jim could see blood soaking into the fabric.

“Damn it to hell,” Bill muttered, wiping at his nose again; there was still more blood, and Bill let his sleeve fall back and instead pinched at the bridge of his nose. He still wouldn’t look up; Jim could see drops of blood spotting the floor or landing on Bill’s shoes.

“Put your head back, for god’s sake,” Jim told him, though his tone was suddenly bereft of the anger it had held only seconds earlier. Bill tensed again, almost defensively, and then slowly obeyed. He lifted his head and tilted it back, leaning it against the wall, his fingers still pinching at the bridge of his nose. His eyes were closed, and Jim thought his lashes looked stuck together.

“I’m sorry about this,” Bill said thickly. “Getting blood everywhere. This whole thing was awfully rude of me, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” Jim said quietly, and he saw Bill give a small smile.

“Well, I suppose that at least had some emotion to it,” he said, and Jim let out a ragged laugh. 

“It’s all fucked up, isn’t it?” he asked, and Bill finally opened his eyes, glancing at him before looking back up at the ceiling.

“I suppose it is.”

They were silent for a long time then, and Jim fought the urge to do any number of things, none of which he would let himself consider for longer than it took to reject them. They were silent until Bill cautiously lowered his head, wiping at his nose again and then rubbing his hand across his lower face, taking a shuddering breath. 

“If you – if you ever want to – if there’s ever a better time,” Bill said slowly. “You know how to find me. You know how to make sure no one else knows about it, too, I suppose.”

“I do,” Jim said, his voice suddenly stiff again, no trace of the earlier sympathy. 

“I don’t expect you to,” Bill said hurriedly, wiping at his nose again. “But if you ever decide…”

“I know.”

“Goodbye, Jim,” Bill said, swallowing. They looked at one another for a moment and Jim could practically hear everything Bill wanted to say; he prayed Bill wouldn’t say any of them, and for once his prayers were answered.

“Look after yourself. Do what you have to,” he said instead, and Jim gave a short nod.

“Goodbye, Bill.”

There was a heavy silence after the door had shut behind him; Jim went to the window again, this time shamelessly pressing his forehead to the glass. The rain wasn’t coming as heavily now, and in the faint glow of light from the window, he saw Bill’s silhouette pause briefly. He saw him lift his hands, this time wiping at his eyes, and for a moment he stayed that way, hands pressed against his face as his shoulders gave the slightest shudder. Then, he seemed to take a deep breath, dropped his arms back to his sides, and set off with purposeful strides into the darkness.


End file.
